Report: What I’ve Been Doing, Pt II

Books edition.



This stack represents March 1 to present day, except for the one I finished after I took this pic, Rolling Stone by Patricia Wentworth, standard 50s-era mystery. Joy Luck Club was the one I finished right before that, which is why I needed a dry, old-fashioned puzzler to set me back upright. I got really emotionally involved with that one.

The Smoke Thief, according to the front cover, was voted Romantic Times’ Historical Mystery of the Year in whatever year it came out -- 2005? It was good, though the romance element was a little, what’s the right term? -- Old -school? Of course, the hero in this story isn’t just an Alpha Male; he’s an Alpha Dragon (shape shifter) so I guess the author can’t say she didn’t tell us what we were getting into. Luckily, the heroine is no wimp.

Dangerous Man, standard historical romance -- I like Candace Camp, though she can be very hit and miss. This story features a singularly incurious hero: he and the heroine are predictably together and planning their happily-ever-after at the end and he never once asks her how she came to adopt her children -- before she ever met her husband -- and why she and her late husband never slept together.

The Dark Gate -- entertaining paranormal romance, featuring a “dark gate,” through which dangerous creatures from other dimensions are trying to sneak into our world and take it over. I’m assuming it is the beginning of a series; otherwise all the new characters who suddenly rush into the story at the end really have no purpose whatsoever.

Rogue Angel: Forbidden City -- part of a series about a Lara Croft-style archeologist with a mystical sword. I read this one because it was about China, and I like it, but I don’t feel the need to read any more of these books. The main character isn’t all that engaging, and the author doesn’t feel like he (she?) needs to go to any effort to help out if you haven’t read any of the other books. A little support from the backstory would have added a lot to the reading experience.

First two books of Marjorie M. Liu’s Dirk & Steele paranormal romance series, Tiger Eye and Shadow Touch. Dirk & Steele is a little like the Xavier Institute in the form of a detective agency. Everyone has special powers: mind reading, telekinesis, etc. It’s good fun, and Liu is a good writer, but she does tend to get a little stuck in one spot every now and then. There are two more of these I haven’t read yet.

First three books of Mercedes Lackey’s Elemental Masters: Fire Rose, The Serpent’s Shadow, and The Gates of Sleep. The Elemental Masters are wizards who live at the turn of the twentieth century. Fire Rose is the only one that takes place in America -- in San Francisco in 1906. The others take place in and around London. They are also loosely based on fairy tales: Fire Rose is Beauty and the Beast, Serpent’s Shadow is Snow White, and Gates of Sleep is Sleeping Beauty. I am really, really enjoying them. As above, there are two more of these I haven’t read yet, and I think another one coming out in the summertime.

And Only to Deceive is a Victorian-era mystery that is strangely similar in plot to a book I read in January, Silent in the Grave. Both feature women who are married to men they don’t love, are suddenly widowed, then realize their husband’s accidental deaths are probably murder. They are then pursued by mysterious men, find friends who are unconventional -- women who are a little scandalous, who take them under their wing, um, really there is even more, I can’t list it all. It surprising to me that with all that, they are rather different books. And Only to Deceive is superior, in my opinion, only because the main character is so much more richly drawn. Both of these books have sequels coming, which I look forward to reading, though if the sequel to Silent in the Grave is in hardback like the first one, I’m waiting for the paperback.